US denies petition for Lunar New Year

As of Jan 16, petitions must have 100,000 signatures gathered within 30 days to get a response from the White House. The Lunar holiday petition was created on Jan 15 and had to meet the previous requirement of 25,000 signatures.

The US recognizes 11 national holidays: New Year's Day, the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr, Washington's birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and Inauguration Day.

Congress has declared national holidays after a significant number of states created the day as a state holiday, or in some cases, Congress initiated the holiday, according to Jacob R. Straus, a congress analyst at Congressional Research Service.

In general, holidays were designed to emphasize a particular aspect of US heritage or to celebrate an event in US history, according to Straus.

"I don't think the Lunar New Year necessarily needs to be a national holiday," said Lily Woo, principal of PS 130 in Manhattan's Chinatown and Little Italy. But she said it should be a holiday for New York public schools, including PS 130, which reported an absence rate of approximately 80 percent during Lunar New Year last year.

Students who celebrate the holiday currently receive an "excused" absence and it's put on their attendance record.

"Students have to make a decision about whether or not to take the day off to spend the holiday with their family and perhaps miss important exams or projects," Woo said.

"It's not fair to these students," she said about those who feel obliged to go to school and skip their celebrations. "It's like having to take exams on Christmas."

The New York State Legislature is considering a bill introduced in January to designate the Asian Lunar New Year as a holiday for all city school districts with an Asian population of 7.5 percent or more.

Most of the Asian population in the US resides in the western part of the country, according to the 2010 US Census. San Francisco is the only US city that recognizes the Lunar New Year for all public schools.

The 2010 Census reported 14.7 million Asians live in the US and make up 4.8 percent of the population, and an additional 2.6 million people, or 0.9 percent of the population, are Asian in combination with one or more other races.

carolineberg@chinadailyusa.com